The humans who do the curating, according to Calacanis, will be based in the U.S. Mahalo will one-up Google because of these people, he claims. If, for instance, Martha Stewart wants to find out why she’s not higher in the results for “cake,” she can speak to a person about it, not an algorithm.

Better still, Calacanis says, the service will be interactive. “We’re completing the search results about 60%, then we’re relying on users for feedback.” After the service is built out, it will be a matter of simple maintenance, refining the results. The revenue model, he says, will be advertising, of the nonobtrusive variety.

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